Welcome back to The Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today is April 2nd.

And here in North Carolina, it is, we're getting a day-late cosmic April Fool's joke, I think,

because as I walked into the studio, I looked outside, and I saw that it was

snowing, that this is disorienting and weird. So, I had a very specific poem in mind today,

but I'm going to rethink that and share with you a poem by Richard Wilbur called A Storm in April.

It just feels appropriate. You've heard from Richard Wilbur on this show before,

perhaps too often, actually, but he lived from 1921 to 2017. It was one of the most important

poets of the 20th century in America. As I've mentioned before, he won the Pulitzer Prize twice

in 1957 and in 1989. And this poem, as I said, is called a swarm in April.

And this is how it goes. Some winters taking leave deal us a last hard blow, salting the ground

like Carthage before they will go. But the bright milling snow which throngs the air today,

it's a way of leaving so as to stay the light flakes do not weigh the willows down

but sift through the white catkins loose as pedal drift

or in an updraft lift and glitter at a height

dazzling as summer's least stir chinked with light

this storm if I am right,

will not be wholly over till green fields here and there turn white with clover, and through chill air,

the puffs of milkweed hover. Richard Wilbur, I saw an interview with him where he talked about

this poem. He was reading, actually. If you want to Google it, you can hear him read it on YouTube,

and that's probably more desirable than hearing me read it. But he talks in there about how

...